Abstract
A thermostable strain S16, hydrolysing carboxymethylcellulose (CMC) was isolated from Punjab, Pakistan, where often temperature reaches 50oC during summer. The organism was identified as Bacillus licheniformis based on sequence homology. Carboxymethylase enzyme produced by Bacillus licheniformis S16 was purified by 90% ethanol precipitation and microcrystalline affinity chromatography. The purified enzyme gave a single band on SDS PAGE with a molecular mass of 29 kDa. The CMCase enzyme was found to be highly active and stable over broad ranges of temperature (37oC-100oC), pH (3-11) and NaCl concentration (1%-7%) with an optimum at 80oC, pH 7.0 and NaCl 7.0%, which showed excellent thermostable, alkali stable and halo stable properties. Thus purified cellulase from Bacillus licheniformis S16 could be greatly useful to industrial utilization.
